Doctor Tour Introduces Medical Students to Rural Life

May 30, 2014

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

First-year medical students from Western University, also known as the University of Western Ontario, were given a taste into what it would be like to practice rural medicine as they toured parts of Bruce and Grey counties this week.

The tour, which is part of their school curriculum, is called “rural discovery week”, where the main objective is for the students to visit hospitals in the region and talk to doctors about the advantages and disadvantages of rural practice.

For a portion of their visit, the Bruce County Federation of Agriculture (BCFA) took the students on a tour to visit the local farms and agricultural business in the area.

“We try to make them familiar with some of the hazards with farming and what kinds of injuries that they might be able to expect,” said Patrick Jilesen President of BCFA.

Jilesen, who has helped organize the tour for the past two years, says the tour’s success is thanks to area farmers who are kind enough to allow them to visit their farm business. One of the stops was at a local dairy farm, where the students helped milk the cows. “We put boots on them and got them dirty,” he said.

Some other components of the tour included making stops at the local fire hall in Walkerton and meeting with a veterinarian from Paisley.

“We are encouraging them to come to rural Ontario,” he said. “But we certainly don’t sugar coat anything for them either,” adding that highway 21 is closed three weeks a year in the winter because of the snow. “It’s part of the region,” he explained.

(Contributed photo: Medical students learning about farm equipment during their visit to Huron Tractor Ltd. in Walkerton, Ont.)

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.